In the distribution and sale of goods, such as garments, e.g., pants, the goods have traditionally been sold by a salesperson from racks of clothing; consequently, packaging and/or dispensing of said goods has not been important. However, with increasing attention being devoted to self-service purchasing, the goods must be appropriately packaged and dispensed from various devices suitable for that purpose.
Because conventionally displayed clothing is not readily adaptable for self-service selection and purchase from the store owner's viewpoint, there has been an ongoing research for inventing self-service display units for dispensing garments. However, present display or dispensing devices now existing in the art for dispensing various and sundry goods are unsuitable for that purpose. Further, for displaying and dispensing pants, conventionally existing shelving and stack units as articles of manufacture have not been adaptable because these units do not allow comparison viewing, selecting, minimized misstacking, pilfering, etc. Still further, it has not been possible to adopt display and dispensing devices for one type of clothing to another type as different "self-service" requirements must be provided for each type of clothing. Moreover, package size requirements for each type of clothing must conform to available shelf dimensions. For example, common vending type of devices, i.e., vending machines, seldom, if ever, satisfy the selection needs of a populance having typical size distribution characteristics. Because a numbrr of different sizes of the same goods must be displayed and stocked for dispensing, this alone has created problems. Additionally, the mere bulk of clothing and the unwieldy display devices has often discouraged the proper selection of goods from prior art devices.
Although a number of attempts have been made to dispense various accessory clothing, such as underpants, hose, pantyhose, etc. (some with a degree of success, such as the "L'eggs" (TM) pantyhose) for the most part, present display and dispensing devices have been unsatisfactory. One reason has been that these devices have not been adaptable for dispensing more bulky clothing, such as outer pants, especially because the selection process could not be properly satisfied (without opening the packages and inspection of the packaged goods). Additionally, the requirements for display devices are such that these must meet the specifications for the shelf dimensions and/or aisle requirements found in a typical supermarket. Thus, heretofore for outer clothing, satisfactory display units have not been available which could meet the various needs of the purchasing public.